


Opulent Provonance

by KuroHitsuji, moonfox281



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Character Development, Dark Fantasy, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Slow Build, Slow Romance, royal setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2019-08-28 04:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16716593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuroHitsuji/pseuds/KuroHitsuji, https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonfox281/pseuds/moonfox281
Summary: In a dystopian society where the government is an oligarchy and ruled by 1st tier nobles: Al Ghul, Luthor, Prince and Wayne.In a society where manipulation, power play and persuasion is key, one must play their cards right to keep both the masses and the nobilities happy, or else it is off for the order of the whole world.





	1. Chapter 1

He woke up again, the fifth time in the week. Shit, he wasn’t this weak, and sure didn’t have time for shit like this. He needed his sleep and his head for the next shift. It had been weeks since it happened, months. Still, Kyle’s face haunted him like an old ghost.

He wasn’t screaming. No, he didn’t even have the strength to do that when they beat him dead.

No, all dead men in Under died silently, as no one remembered them, and the next day the replacements would come. It was a mess, that day, or was it even a day or night, Jason did n’t know anymore. Under hundreds feet down the ground like this, the definition of day and night were defined by the bulbs shining their way to the tunnels. He knew something was wrong with Kyle, had worked with the guy for years to know when his swings were leftover of a drunken night, or when something was actually out of the track. Kyle was a top worker, with arms built like quarry stone, hard and strong and so damn precise. The guy could swing a hammer with the strength of three men even when half of the body was fueled by liquor. No, when his buddy’s knees hit the ground it was because of something, something or maybe everything. He had burnt all his money on drug again, not to feed the addiction that was never there, but to keep the mind on full function. He had taken more shifts, working days and nights and doing other people’s jobs too, just in exchange for a few more nickels. The guys in the tunnels said he got a girl up on the ground, and Jason believed it.

The guy had always been a giant cinnamon roll in the end anyway, shits like that did sound like what he would have done. So in the end, he worked himself out, till even the booze and the electric bust from drug and liquor couldn’t even fuel his body anymore. And in Under, when you stopped working, you started dying.

 

He pushed himself off the bed, washed a hand over his face and just sat there. The ring he had pulled off Kyle’s finger while they took him away, lied on that crippled table on the corner of the bunker, dim green and looking cheap. It was the only thing that was left on him that moment, back in his bunker, there were only a few pieces of clothes, and two cans of foods. None of them living here had much to leave behind, and this morning, people must have cleared out Kyle’s almost empty place for the new guy to come in. There were always new guys waiting to come in.

The more Jason thought about it, the more he didn’t want to think about it. It was like that drill when an accident happened, you covered the kids’ eyes but let your own stay open, staring and letting the truth s  through your skin. You couldn’t stop watching, because   that accident, what had happened, was a reminder that you needed to acknowledge, a warning bell to wake  you, to show that this was the cruel reality you lived in, that the same thing could happen to you at any time, and you needed to live with that fact.  

 

Jason went to wash his face out at the doorstep of his bunker, pouring all of what was left in the bottle on his head, and letting the liquid sting his eyes. A few kids ran in the hall, through his door and back down the stair. The whole place was built in ant colony model, with thousands of tiny bunkers dug their way into the red-brown dirt and sectioned themselves in each floor, making a home for tiny ant people like them. They moved around by feet, and they didn’t go too far from their workplace nor their living areas. Giant wormholes were made to connect each Colony together, their pipelines to work.

Looking at the kids running around barefooted , Jason suddenly ducked down to smell his pants. Damn, he reeked. He made a note to himself to go down the sewer for another gallon after tomorrow, damn it for he had almost used all of his monthly sizes.

 

The air had gone lower these days, as more machines came down and more dirt to dig up. None of them workers knew what they were building, just knowing that the people from Upper must want something new, another cable lines, more gems to wear or maybe some more weird shit from deep under the dirty ground that they didn’t want their pretty hands to touch. A slave’s job wasn’t to know, but to build when those people wanted something.

They did have names for the things they built though, slangs between workers other than the number and code name that every soldier and manager seemed to use.

Whatever it was this time, it gotta be huge. They had worked on this project for years, digging a massive room that fitted dozens of giant dumpers, trenchers and cranes. All the holes and tunnels they had built so far were linked to this place, 3 years of digging all to lead to this main room, surrounded by 1600 feet wall of dirt, rocks and soil. It was a giant empty bubble underground.

They called it Balloon, the giant balloon that pumped itself swollen in the middle of the great ground land. And for whatever the hell was this Balloon being built for, Jason honestly sincerely didn’t want to know.

 

“Oi, Todd!” The dumper driver came to greet him. Jason recognized Hal, as well as he recognized all the dudes in Kyle’s Ring Corp. “Here, for you.”

The man handed him a pair of glove, Kevlar like his beat old ones, but brand new.

“No shit!” Jason dropped the cement sacks on his shoulder down and took the glove to his hands. “Where did you get this?”

“From Kyle, it’s his annual portion, the last one from now on. They’ll start cutting all his supply this noon. I thought his best friend should get some of his last bits for standing up for him.”

Right, dead man didn’t need stuff, right? If Kyle were here he would definitely need this, he had always worked double, and sometimes even triple than others. Thinking about it, that was exactly how they had met each other, working too many shared shifts together, even strange faces could become familiar.

Looking down at his gloves, long-torn and dirty, with patches and a fair amount of burned spots from the times he worked in the mines that no amount of washing could possibly get them off. Normally a pair should last about 7-9 months, depending on the type of jobs they handled, and they were usually given out by the contractors and managers from every floor at the Liberality boots every 12 months. But Jason’s never last longer than 5 months. He worked more than others, even more than Kyle before he got a girl from up the land to impress. The gloves helped them work, without them their hands would be torn, burned, hurt and bleeding from all the hard rock, heavy soil, and burning fire. And what a slave could possibly do without their hands. Jason couldn’t remember the number of times he had to sneak down to the black market in the middle of the year to bargain his guts out for a new pair, or to at least get some decent quality cloth and tin foil to patch on the damaged areas because the pain and stings were getting hard to b  with.

Taking the new Kevlar pair from Jordan like this, made Jason’s lips crooked into a smile. Even when dead, Kyle still looked after him, just like what they had always done to each other.

“So how’s your back?” Jordan asked, cigarette burned yellow and red between his lips, making Jason itch for one too. But no, too soon, not right in the morning. He needed to save what was left of his pack for the after lunch and the third shift of the day.

“Why do you ask?” He shrugged.

“Because people don’t usually take 12 whips in the back for fighting for a dead man, especially down here.”

Right, especially down here, where people dying every day was the norm just as much as dirt was brown and bulbs were orange light. Jason didn’t know what had gotten into him back then, when the whips rained down on Kyle’s unconscious body and commands barked out for him to get up and work. He just knew he had run right over and pushed the soldier flat down on the ground, dirtying his always clean suit with orange dust and brown mine soil like the rest of them, knocking his blood clad leather whip away from his hand with the half of the force he usually put on to roll rocks and carry sacks.

“You made quite a story at the Pit, you know.” Hal said, hands deep in his pockets as he tried to catch a look on Jason’s face behind the shadow of his construction helmet. “People talked about you when they raised their glasses for Kyle.”

“Well, that was a good way to get kill ed.”

As heroic as people at the Pit or on his floor like to put it, it was a stupid move. At the end Jason was tied up at the grand hall and almost whipped to death if it wasn’t for Guy and a few other guys ran over and talked it off for him. His back took almost 3 weeks to heal, even under Ma’s hands, and she was the best healer down here.

Hal smirked with shining eyes that reflected the burning cigarette. They carried hope in them, something that shouldn’t be able to exist in a life like this. But Jordan wasn’t born here, he’d lived up there on the ground at first, had seen the sky and the sun and had breathed fresh air for a long time before life got difficult and fucked him up, forcing him to move down here like many other proletarians.

Jason didn’t know how people up there lived their lives and t  their ways, he was born, raised and had lived here from the very beginning. He didn’t know what shade of blue the sky was, what kind of yellow the sun had, and couldn’t possibly imagine and understand the shiny memories that glittered in Hal’s eyes every time he talked about the life up there with such hopeful voice. 

“I heard there’s someone coming down today.” The man blew the smoke and touched his green ring. There was something that seemed so holy  about the way people in the Ring Corp saw the item, like it was a sacred bond that connected all lost souls together, guiding them toward the right path and blew hope into their hollow chests.

To Jason, Hal and the others were no more than a bunch of religious believers to some useless god.

“Really? How comes?” People from the land and up didn’t come here frequent enough to be considered normal.

“Not sure, but words were slipped around that they’re here to watch over what we’re building here, whatever the shit is.”

Suddenly, he nudged on Jason’s forearm and threw his head up.

“Look.”

Jason did and followed his gaze all the way up to the glass control room on the top of the Balloon.

“You see that?” Hal asked, like Jason’s eyes weren’t clear enough to spot the white man standing right at the edge of the full glass window, watching everything from beneath his feet. Grey suit and slick hair, glasses and clipped card on the front pocket. He was from Upper, only a blind man wouldn’t recognize that fact. A 4 years old child would be able to know no man living here dressed like that and stood that straight, chin up and eyes down like all of them workers from down here were just ants underneath the sole of his shoes.

“I can probably earn 2 months supply with those glasses alone.” Hal chuckled humorlessly, blowing out the grey smoke right at the direction of the control room like a harmless attempt of an insult.

“He’s looking at us.”

Jason didn’t trust his vision completely, but he trusted his instinct more than enough to know when he was being watched.

“He’s looking at all of us, kid.”

“Where do you think he’s from?”

Hal blew out another round of smoke then crushed the leftover of the cigarette with the end of his boot.

“Upper, upper upper.” He said it, as sure and clear as a statement. “Not even the ground people can afford that kind of suit.”

“A bourgeois, then.”

 Hal looked at him and smirked.

“So you know how the hierarchy works, huh?”

Jason just shrugged. “I have books.”

“Not a lot of people down here can read. I’m starting to figure out where all the extra money you get goes to.” Hal arched his brows and sighed. “But yeah, probably. He’s either a superior worker of some second-tier asshole that holds the project of this place, or is the second tier asshole himself.” He stopped then, as if to rethink of what he had said and adding some more. “No, for a huge ass pit that took months and a quarter of the labor force down here to work on like this, it must be for something much bigger. 1st tier’s command, I doubt.”

“1st tier? You mean the Royalty, either four of them?”

For a moment Hal just turned and looked at him. There was something in his eyes that never once Jason though a man like him could possess, calculating, analyzing like Jason just broke out a mystery for him to solve, and it was written on all over his face. Hal did that sometimes, surprising Jason with the way his head worked. Not only that he could read and write like all the people from the Land could, but his eyes spoke differentiation from the rest of the people down here. They talked. For most of people down here, eye contacts were mostly avoided, because sometimes it was better that way, when a soul was about to fade away, or when someone just simply didn’t even care.

People didn’t trust each other down here, or at least not often enough. Poverty and the cruelness life treated them had numbed all the other emotions, leaving only survival instincts to kick and scream and reminding that they were still alive.

 

Hal was always different, similar like the rest of them, but somehow different. He was readable, or at least, there was something about him to be read. This time though, Jason felt like he couldn’t read what the man was thinking with those eyes pinning on him, hard and serious, as well as another cold pair all the way up in the control room, surveying in complete silence and distance.

“For a labor slave, you know too damn much, kid.”

 

When Hal turned and walked away, leaving Jason behind, the eyes of that bourgeois were still down on him.

 

  

* * *

 

 

 “So, that bloody wolf is still down here today.”

Dax said as he spun the screwdriver between his chicken fingers, lips pulled and crunched, making a duck face when pulling out the tier.

Jason felt sorry for him. The kid was skinnier than even the 2 cent prostitutes wandering around the pit for customers. He was pure skin and bones and Jason just couldn’t help but wonder how he managed to roll around and survive up until now with the dripping wage of fixing construction vehicles down at the grand hall shop.

He walked over and pulled the tier out of the kid’s arms, hauled it up and rolled it aside with the ease of a heavy labor slave. Dax whistled and grinned a mouthful, teeth crook and yellow because hygiene was never the first to care about when there was a stomach demanding to be filled.

“Look at ya’ arms, man. Bet the gals down the pit would give ya free night if ya let ‘em.” He crawled up, patted off the dirt on his pants and ran over to the tools on the table nearby.

“I don’t do prostitute.” Jason deadpanned.

“Shame man, all ya seem to be doing is playin’ with the rocks.”

“Just cut the shit, what do you mean by “that bloody wolf is still here?”

Dax turned and looked at him with wide eyes, his mouth full of screws and a bronze string in between. Jason couldn’t say the kid wasn’t weird, but at least he was good with the tools and rolling under loaders.

“Dunno,” He shrugged. “I heard the guys talkin. They said something about a pretty man.”

That pretty man must be the bourgeois, because anyone with money clad outside was pretty to the slaves’ eyes.

Jason watched Daxton skipped his legs back to the truck then slid under it. He always seemed to possess too much energy it had to burst out by some way, either by his spider limbs or motormouth. Jason usually let him talk though, he had, by some magical way managed to impress the kid with his power of silence and paralyzed face in most situation s, that he liked Jason enough to charge him lower than others every time.

“Ya know, the goner said they’re all pretty up there.” Dax wiggled his dusty skinny brows toward Jason. Everything in this kid seemed so low on nutrient that Jason liked to think even his brows had shrugged along with the rest of his body.

“They said that?”

“Yup, goners used to be up there, ya know.” And like a heart-piercing salute, the ex land-livings were called goners down here, like a punching reminder of how they had had it, everything compared to _this_ , and they had lost it. “They said up there, all meddlers live fancy and nearer to the sky, in buildings that punch their roots on the land, so their skins are all pretty and healthy. They go around in cars, with long tanks and private drivers to drive them around wherever they want. And they eat strange foods covered in gold dust through generations, so they’re born prettier than most. Really, the goners said that. I saw that wolf too ya know, yesterday, and I’m telling you he’s pretty dang beautiful too.”

Jason just thought the kid had wandered around the pit too much for his own good. Most guys got down there to drink and forget, or to fight and release the stress. It wasn’t his place to say, but the more Dax spent his time there, sooner or later, he was gonna get into trouble, if he hadn’t got some in his pockets already. As easy as it was for people to make money at the pit, with the mess of bubbling alcohol and leftover adrenaline, it wasn’t a place for just anyone.

“You need to pick up other habits than eavesdropping on  people, kid.”

For his answer, Dax just grinned a mouthful, face dirty from all the engine oil he had smudged around.

 

He returned to his shift and met Hal at the Balloon. The moment their eyes met, the man greeted him with a wide smile and a nudge of his head toward the glass control room. The bourgeois was still there today, different suit, but the same appearance. His eyes dragged around in slow, cold, hard stare, so damn calm and calculating it tickled Jason’s nerves somehow. Those eyes suddenly were on him, no shame or waver when being caught.

Jason just ducked his head and pulled his helmet back straight, walking toward the trucks and the piles of dirt.

When lunch break was announced, Hal’s group of Ring Corp’s men waved at him to go with them. The man just gave him a curt nod and cued him to follow. Jason couldn’t remember the last time they were this friendly with him, because that hadn’t ever happened before. But then Hal split a half of his bread in his tray and dumped it onto Jason’s, so he just sat down immediately. 

“So, a new group was sent up this morning.” Blondy, Jason didn’t even know who the heck the guy was, just knew he had a wicked smile and one missing tooth on the corner of the top roll. He talked like Jason was his buddy for years, completely comfortable and careless as he dipped down to bite on a spoonful of potato.

“Well, someone gotta keep the toilets up there clean.”

They all laughed and suddenly, Jason felt nervous.

“Even if just for cleaning the streets, I’d like to go up there once. Air has gone low this week, the dust is killing my lungs.”

“Keep dreaming, they’ll never send strong slaves like us up. Too risky if some might get some funny ideas in their heads like stealing or terrorizing.”

Hal choked on his cup and grinned widely. “I’ll tell you this, if you plan to go up there and do exactly that, no one’s gonna fight you back. They’re all commoners, up there. The only workout most of them do is lifting papers and walking a detour for morning coffee.”

Coffee. Jason had tasted it before, it wasn’t exactly like what he had expected it to be. Too dark and bitter, like the polluted water in the ditches that ran around the edges of the grand hall.

“I don’t know, maybe if John here is pretty enough, they’ll let him up for some games, right?”

“Fuck you.” The John laughed. Jason couldn’t help but watched his red bushy beard wiggled under his breath.

“Don’t laugh, pleasure slaves make more than two days work of us in 30 minutes. Last night, Susan sold one of her girls for an anonymous customer, again. This morning I saw her packing, ready to leave this shit hole behind forever.”

“Susan’s going up?”

“Yep, guess even she is too tired of this life.”

“Her girls are the best looking ones, now that they’re all gone, she got nothing left to stay. Not everyone can stick around forever to play hero.”

Suddenly they were all looking at him, and Jason couldn’t feel anything else but the anger slowly sip through his blood and bones like a disease.

 “I’m not a hero.” Jason grunted, not even trying to be polite. He hesitated when Jordan cued his head for him to calm down, not that he even cared anyway. Jason didn’t want to sit with them, he didn’t exactly know anyone of them, he didn’t even know Hal good enough besides from all the bits Kyle had talked about him before.

“You are a hero for a lot of people here. It’s been long since someone had the guts to stand against a soldier like that, not to say put one’s ass flat on the ground .”

They all chuckled together. Jason felt irritated when it seemed like it was only him who didn’t think there was anything to laugh about.

“Rayner was a good kid, quite impulsive one, but a good kid. He’d be proud, knowing you had stand ed up for him.”

Talking about Kyle like this made Jason sick. He didn’t know these people, and he didn’t like them already. He slammed his helmet down the table, and enjoyed a mere second of satisfaction when half of the group did flinch at the movement.

“Kyle’s dead. Dead people don’t do proud, they stay dead.”

 

He ignored Hal’s eyes when he grabbed his tray and left the table, only a few steps away of his long trading legs did he already heard the guys in the group talking low and small to each other.

“Well, now we know the Red Corp’s gonna love the shit out of this kid.”

Jason didn’t know there was even any other corp than the stupid green one Kyle was in, and he didn’t give a single fuck either.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He only made it halfway to the grand hall to grab something for tonight when some guys pushed him aside and ran away in a rush. Jason managed to grab one before they all fled away, swiping the guy right back by his collar, and knocking the helmet on his head off.

Red helmet. This guy was from the diamond mines, and the closest mine to this area was three holes away. Why would workers from Diamond run all the way up to Balloon?

“Hey, get your fucking hand off.” The guy grunted, strong arms went up to clutch on Jason’s, but hell if he was gonna give a shit. Normally he would let go, but not today, not when he was feeling fucking frustrated.

“You run on people and pull out that fucking attitude?”

They were dragging attention, Grand Square was always packed due to the supply booths of the black market that happened at every rush hour when the soldiers went away for food and lunch break, and it was the connection ground between holes to each other. Some people stopped to look at them, mothers pulled their children closer to their feet and further away from Jason and the guy. The guy’s friends seemed to have realized his absence and came back. And just as Jason expected, they were all Diamond’s workers.

Someone must have fucked up real hard for these pricks to crawl out of the mine three holes away and chased all the way to here.

 

The guy’s friends looked at Jason and in a moment, he could see something was breaking out of their heads, making their eyes on Jason change.

“You little−” The guy in his hands struggled, but one of his friends cut off.

“Dutch, it’s him.”

The hell did he mean “it’s him”?

Jason was still in the middle of eye-wrestling with the rest of Dutch guy’s group when he realized the Dutch guy himself had turned his eyes back on him, only less intimidating this time.

He palmed up, head ducked down and shoulder dropped. The guy shrugged and tried to smile at Jason. “Sorry dude, just in a real hurry here.” He then ripped Jason’s hands off his collar hard then dashed away along with his crew.

Jason just stood there, didn’t know what the heck had just happened, had forgotten what he was even doing in here for a minute. When he managed to gain his brain back, managed to remember him being here in the first place was to exchange the fixed clock to a girl on the third floor for a half of a gallon of water.

He shrugged it off though, let it go because shit had gone weird since Kyle’s death.

 

He only made it to the second floor when someone started screaming. From the higher ground, Jason got the best view down the market, and shit if his eyes were playing tricks with him, but there was no way on Earth he could mistake Dax with someone else.

The kid was hauled up by that Dutch guy group that had bumped into him earlier, and if Jason thought the day couldn’t get shittier, this surely did the job.

Jason did his best to barge back down the square, pushing people and things aside because the kid was in dead trouble this time. He better hurry up before those guys beat Dax to a bloody pulp, mine workers always had a reputation on short temper and nasty punch. Jason knew it, because he was fucking in the crew for quite a long time too.

Dax was nearly out cold now, mouth bloody and hands powerless, gripping on that Dutch guy arms as he tried to free himself. They were dragging him away, and _if_ they succeed in dragging him away, Dax would 100% end up dead by the time anyone managed to find him.

He was not gonna make it in time, so Jason made a note to himself that jumping off the second story of the colony wasn’t a healthy thing to be done every day, well, after he had already thrown himself off.

He landed on the awning of a booth, crashing the whole thing down along with its owner, and successfully scaring the shit out of everyone nearby.

There wasn’t time to moan for his back, so Jason only let out a grunt when he shot back up and screamed at everyone to get out of his way. The Dutch guy’s pack was already near at the edge of the Grant Square, only a few miles away from the closest Wormhole, with Dax dragging the half of his body down the ground all the way as if the kid had no energy left.

Jason didn’t think clearly  and grabbed the nearest thing he found in a walking by lady’s hands, which happened to be an anodized kettle that he only acknowledged its identity after the thing had flown half of its way, and threw it right at the guy who was holding Dax, knocking him flat down to the ground.

Shit, the thing usually didn’t weight much, but Jason seriously prayed he didn’t kill anyone while trying to save Dax’s ass.

He got time when the knocked-out guy’s friends were still shocked and hurried themselves to get the guy back up, and dashed over to their place.

“You!” He screamed, ran right over and gripped tight on the man who just hauled Dax back up by the collar. “Where do you think you’re taking him?”

“To pay his debt, what do you think?” The guy spat back, ripped his arm off Jason’s iron grip and pointed a finger down at Dax. “This kid was where he wasn’t supposed to be, and I pretty damn sure he had heard something he shouldn’t have  heard too.”

Shit. Jason knew it, he had warned Dax about the Pit, had fucking told the kid that wasn’t the place to go around and eavesdropping shit. But guess what, now he was gonna have to fucking pay his life for it.

“Hey man. I know your deal, but this kid,” He turned down and looked at Dax. The kid’s eyes were all puffy now, and goddamn it, Jason couldn’t see some teeth that were supposed to be there in his mouth. “He ain’t  know what he ’s doing most of the time.”

“Well I don’t give a fuck. He’s going with us.”

Oho, as much as the kid annoyed him sometimes… well, could just say most of the time, there was no way in hell Jason was gonna let him end up died in the mud river down the pitch just because the kid was too naïve and stupid to understand this complicated and dangerous world.

And Jason knew it. The very first moment he saw Dax got dragged away, it wasn’t Dax he was seeing anymore. It was Kyle.

“No.” He stated, putting a hand on Dax’s limp shoulder as a reassurance in case the kid was still conscious. “Not on my watch.”

The guys looked at each other, thinking. They were working on it, and when their eyes all turned back to Jason, he didn’t know what the hell was the deal about him that kept these douchebags thinking so long and seriously like that.

“Look, man.” Dutch started, and he honestly looked like he didn’t want to get Jason involved. “We appreciate the thing you did with the soldiers, but this kid right here, he’s not worth it to get yourself into this mess. You ain’t owe him a thing.”

Truth was told, but Jason punched the guy square in the face anyway. The force knocked his head back and sent the guy’s ass down the ground. In the next minute, it was only chaos. A guy that weighed like a fucking hog jumped on Jason’s back, dragging his knees down and wrestling his neck. Jason did his best to kick Dax’s limp body out of this fucking war zone and hunched down, balanced strength down his feet and punched his thumbs in the eyes of the fucker on his back. He heard screams, and his hands went back bloody, but there was no time to notice the situation as another man went up and threw a punch at him. Jason managed to dodge it, and barely succeed for the next coming. Now that he counted, there was 6 of them, plus Dutch on the ground and the one that was crying for his bloody eyes. That made it 8, and boys was it an uneven match.

One of them split off the pack and went for Dax. Jason moved to that one first, and was immediately blocked by a giant redhead that looked more like a fucking bear than a human being. Diamond’s workers had always got a reputation on strength and physic, because not a lot of machine was allowed to be used in such delicate exploitation, and damn, were hammers heavy and quarry rocks hard to break through.

Going up against these kinds of guys, especially outnumbered like this, Dax must have called for a death wish.

Jason slipped down through that redhead’s legs, and kicked him right in the groin. No one said he was fighting fair and square, couldn’t ask for such luxurious thing when you lived in Under, and he got no mind to look back and watch the pain crunched on the guy’s face as he got his dick mashed under Jason’s shoe sole. He went right to the guy that was hauling Dax up, dodged his kick just in time and grabbed his leg, throwing him to two guys coming right up at them.

“Come on Dax! Get our skinny ass up and out of here!” He pushed and kicked while screaming at Dax down near his feet. The kid had one swollen eye barely opened, his fingers trembled, which was good now that he wasn’t unconscious anymore.

Dutch guy was getting up and so did some of his fallen buddies. Not a good sight for Jason, because one against 8, with Jason got Dax’s ass handed to him to take care of, was never gonna make this whole thing end up prettily.

He made his moves quick, and efficient. Not a lot of energy left to be wasted, so he went for weak spots like ribs, neck and knees, couldn’t forget some dick kicking too. The part-time doing Pit fighting gave Jason enough experience to g  these guys quite of a fight. Most of them were raw muscle, not much skill they got there in the pockets. But Jason got a fucking useless kid to protect and no, despite doing a hell of a job holding his own he couldn’t possibly multiply himself to do both the fighting and babysitting Dax’s half-conscious ass, because there were fucking 8 of them.

God, now that he thought back, the kid was definitely not worth it for him to get his own ass in a situation like this. He didn’t know Dax that much, didn’t fucking owe anything from him too just like Douche Dutch had said, most of the time he met the kid was when his engine went down or one of the tires got fucked up. But when Daxton shakingly grabbed on the edge of Jason’s boot, lips trembled as he wheezed out a barely audible “Ja..so..”. He knew there was no way in this fucking living hell he was gonna leave the kid in the hands of these fucking pricks.

He threw his leg up and kicked the chest of the first one came up, made it just in time to duck down and pushed Dax further away from his foot stand and dashed himself over to grab on the closest one’s waist, luring them all out from where the kid was lying uselessly.

Seriously, everyone in Under pretty much knew a move or two, if not saying they were fucking hell of a fighter. But this kid, this fucking kid that didn’t even know how to catch a fly, had an absolute talent in dragging his bony ass into trouble.

By the time Jason managed to even the game out to 1 to 3, he was already wheezing his lungs out. Most of these fuckers weighted like fucking dumper tires, even worse, seemed like he was wrong, they knew how to fucking fight. Jason was pretty sure some of them must have had a few rounds in the ring of the Pit before. They probably didn’t expect  Jason to pull out quite a fight too. The more Jason moved, the more he realized he had visibly slowed down. He went for shortcuts and dirty tricks now, trying to end it as quick as possible, not caring if he was even killing anyone because this wasn’t about Dax’s life anymore, this was about his also. If Jason lost now, it was completely obvious his corpse was gonna ended up rotten right next Dax’s.

Jason was in serious trouble when the soldiers barged in from the hole, and for once in his life, he felt relieved to see the Dogs in black and grey marching their way to his place. But nope, relief was to be allowed in no more than 10 seconds when suddenly all big guns and green lasers were on him, and _only_ him.

“What the fuck…” He breathed, chest labored as eyes dashed around. The Dutch guy group was helping each other up, and all of the soldiers seemed to not give a single shit. Sweat rolled down his face as he looked down on Dax, who was trying to get up on shaky hands.

“What’s your problem? They started this!” He shouted, felt his lungs squeezed tight after that. His ribs had taken a couple of pretty damn good blows and now they were whining about it.

These Dogs, they didn’t say a word, just pointed their fucking guns on Jason, and the pain on his ribs, the fucking smirk on Dutch face, all of it was making Jason’s blood boil.

“Hand the kid over, W1069M.” The Dog barked, and of fucking course they knew Jason’s code. “I repeat, stand down and hand the kid over.”

“And the hell are you going to do with him?” Jason spat, and blood came out, hopefully not his teeth too. “The kid ain’t done shit.”

Something fishy was going on in here, especially with that fucking face Douchy Dutch was making. The gun safeties clicked off and like instinct, Jason slowly moved over to cover the rest of Dax behind him.

“You have so many things to explain to me after this, kid.” He murmured low to only Dax, and the kid just clutched on his legs and glanced around in horror. “Can you walk?”

“I can now.” Dax murmured back.

“Hand the kid over, slave! And we will let you walk away unharmed.”

Well, ain't that fucking funny.

Jason just shielded himself over Dax more, fists tightened and grabbed on the pointy rock Dax had sneaked up to his hand. He counted 10, maybe more, who knew how many were on their way in the tunnel, but for now, 10 it would be. He needed a distraction, something to clean the road for Dax to run his way back down to the Grand Square. Down there he’d be able to disappear, down there he’d find his way to safety.

He rolled over like a truck wheel before the rock even made it to closest soldier’s helmet. Gunshots were heard loud and clear as Dax landed right behind his back, breathing like he was on asthma. He threw the kid behind the rock nearby and kicked on the soldier’s legs, stripped his gun away and fired without thinking.

He didn’t have time when the bullets punctuated his skin, and goddamn it, didn’t it stung. His knees fell down the ground and he felt the gun slipped off his bleeding hands, being kicked off by armor-clad foot. Then suddenly, so many more legs, Jason hadn’t realized he had lost the strength to even lift his head up until army boots were in his vision, so many of them.

He felt like he could faint at any moment, his vision blurred and he tried, tried to focus on one foot exactly, but there were so many of them, and they were all so similar. His lids were dropping down and like there were hands trying to drag them down and close. He remembered about Dax, as he looked down at a dozen of uniformed feet surrounding his ground. He got their attention, he _was_ the distraction.

“Run, run now!” He yelled with what was left of his aching lungs, could feel his ribs screaming and cracking under the force of air he tried to punch out.  

He heard footsteps, loud and clear noises of weapons and metals banging into each other as all the soldiers turned toward Dax’s side. Through his heavy-lidded eyes, he saw the kid rolled off the edge of the hole mouth, and rush down with limped legs into the busy market. He easily blended in with the rest of the people, and disappeared right in front of the three soldiers that had chased behind his back.

Jason turned and grinned his bloody mouth, feeling damn victorious.

“Mission failed.”

Not the wisest thing that slipped out of his mouth, since he got kicked right in the gut for that, but damn, he knew the Dogs hated it when they failed to do their jobs. Jason saw the electric blue and white cracked in his vision, and realized right away what it was.

Tasers, long big ass tasers that stung like a fucking bitch but it was okay, Jason was gonna survive, he had always managed to survive, and Dax was safe now. The concussion came like the usual nighttime sleep, slow and steady then all of the sudden. His eyes couldn’t see clear anymore, as electric tazed and danced on his skin like hot needles, but his mind could still work it right when another set off came into his limited vision. Black and shiny leather shoes, matte and flat pants sleeves, this one wasn’t a fucking Dog.

Jason tried to turn his head up but no energy was there in the system to help him anymore, his head hung down low like a limped puppet as some hands hauled him up by both arms. His head slung back by the force, and then, only then, he saw his face.

The bourgeois. The Wolf in Dax’s description. The same intense eyes pinning on him like they wanted to eat Jason’s flesh raw and alive.    

“I’ve found it.” Sweet voice, cold but smooth like the shiny rocks in the mines, unclad by the mask that usually hung tight and precise onto the soldier’s faces. He spoke, low and clear, not to Jason, not the dogs wandering around him protectively, not to anyone, but the blinking phone in his hand. “Yes, Mr. Wayne. The one you’ve been looking for.”

 

After that, darkness came and invaded Jason’s whole world.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Jason was awake long before he decided to open his eyes. Something in him, call it an instinct, beaconed him to get a hold of the situation first before actually make a call.

The air felt strange while breaking into his nostrils, it felt different. It felt… lighter, and easier to breathe in. Jason wasn’t sure if this difference was good or bad, but he didn’t like it already. It was silence that invaded his surrounding, and that, Jason for sure knew, was the most wrongness of the whole situation. Underworld had never possessed silence, racket, rocks rolling, machines roaring, the ground rumbling, people screaming and crying, those were the noises all Unders grew up with, lived with, and died with. The sounds never stopped, and none of the people who lived here had ever started asking where they came from, or when they’d stop. Those were the sounds that had first reached Jason’s ears the moment his nostrils breathed dusty air, the moment his mouth bailed the first ever cry of his life. Not the sound of his mother cooing, not the sound of his father crying, not the sound of people cheering, but the sound of dirt rolling, of vehicles screaming, of the ground rocking as another monster machine punched through the dirt and soil, mixing them all up, digging deeper and deeper in search for something none of them Unders could ever dream of.

Not a single sound was leaking out for his ears to catch. Something was wrong, and Jason sensed it before he heard the soft muffle noise of fabrics rubbing against each other, right next to him.

“I know you’re awake.”

Jason would die before he forgot that voice. Clear, softer and much more demanding compare to any other’s. The Bourgeois Wolf.

Jason slowly opened his eyes, already deciding there was no surprise element left to surprise the fucker anyway. The light hit his iris on full force, white and so damn bright he almost shouted out loud when his pupils struggled to adapt to the sudden change, twitching and blowing nonstop. Jason could felt the water stung on the corner of his eyes when he tried again, this time much slower and on prepare.

The sight of the room slowly came to his view, covered in white and highlighted with metal black of so many weird devices. The first thing Jason noticed was… everything. It was too much but at the same time too little, like everything in here came in a set, a clean brand new out of the pack white set of room thingies, just basic enough to make the room not empty, but not enough to make it look lively. Everything was just white, alien looking, and metallic, from the wall, the curtain, the cart tray on the corner, the door. Everything looked so clean and fresh, like the brand new supply stuffs they got at Liberality booth every 6 or 12 months.

White, clean, fresh and new weren’t popular words in Jason’s life, and probably most of people’s here too. 

When his eyes dashed down, Jason had a moment of keeping himself from a full panic attack because he hadn’t realized he was on a bed before. Even worse, the bed was fucking white too, with wires hooked on him then up above his head. The thing about a body not moving for so long is that it tends to lose the feeling of its surrounding. Jason hadn’t known the bed was too soft for his liking until he rolled aside and groaned out loud as the numbness stung on every inch of skin.

“Go easy on yourself. You’ve been out for 2 days.”

Jason jerked his head back toward the Bourgeois. The man sat on the chair right next to his bed, one leg drew up and crossed on the other. He was dressed as the same as the last time Jason saw him, gray suit with a blue tie, shiny leather shoes reflected back the bright white light. The gold rim of his glasses did weird things to Jason’s eyes, it drew him in, so shiny and beautiful Jason did take longer than necessary before he glanced down to take a look at those eyes. Grey and cold just like the vibe this whole room gave out, the Bourgeois just sat there, and stared at Jason like he was some kind of weird newly discovered animal.

“What do you mean 2 days?” He blurted out, voice sounded strange and crisp like his throat might actually break into pieces if he attempted to shout or scream. It hurt too, and Jason didn’t think twice before snatching the glass of water over when the Bourgeois pushed it toward him.

The guy just smirked at him, a cold halfhearted lift of the lips that made Jason shiver just by looking at it.

“You have missed quite a lot, Mr. Todd.” He spoke, voice still so distant and so damn in control.

“What did you do to Dax?” Jason grunted, ripping out the wires and needle attached to his arm. “What did you do to the kid?”

“Nothing out of our morals. He must have turned back to his normal life by now.” The guy answered, still lightly smirking. “He was never our target from the beginning.”

Jason stormed off the bed. “Fucker! If you do anything…” He didn’t make it three steps when the door slammed open, and so many soldiers barged in, tazers and shields wielded up and on him.

“The hell… ” Jason was still honest to god confused when the Bourgeois waved his hand up, shooing the soldiers to stand down.

“It’s okay, he’s a little impulsive, this little one.”

Little one? The fuck, Jason was like twice the size of this guy. Jason bet the best this blonde wolf could probably have behind all those layers of matt suit and fancy tie were chicken limbs with the strength to only lift phones and pencils.

The Dogs were a completely different story though, they were built like war horses, clad in heavy armor and moved like wolves in hunting season. They roomed around the Bourgeois like house dogs around their master, protective and oversensitive to every lightest flinch from Jason.

“People, please.” The Bourgeois whined, pinching the bridge of his nose while pushing up the frame of his shiny glasses. “Can we do this without guns pointing around my head?”

He said it, like he was the one at gunpoint and not Jason, like the guns weren't drawn out to protect him in the first place.

Jason felt the sudden need to spit at that wolf’s face. That tone of speaking, every littlest gesture and movement, it stunk the air with cockiness and self-assertion, like the bastard fucking owned the place and the thing that made Jason felt even worse, was that the bastard probably did.

After a moment of eye dashing and head gearing, the Dogs lowered their weapons and stood down by one step, like that would possibly make Jason feel any better.

“Thank you.” The Bourgeois Wolf emphasized, and Jason didn’t like the tone he used. “I apologize for such an inconvenience, but as you can see, we all have our roles, and all these men here,” He turned around and waved his hand at the Dogs, head cocked back toward Jason. “They’re just playing their parts, so I suggest that you sit down, so we can have this conversation in a more proper manner.”  

It felt like the whole room was waiting for his response, just eyes pinning on him and Jason spotted the faint waver of a gun of a Dog standing behind that Blonde Wolf, motioning him to do the exact thing that he was ordered to do. Jason remembered how painful it was when those guns fired and the bullets hit his skin, he was still in a hazing process of wondering and figuring out why the hell could he still possibly be alive and active like this after being shot for multiple times by that very same weapons.

There was a lot of missing pieces in his head right now, and Jason felt like he didn’t know anything anymore, one thing he was sure though, he definitely didn’t want to get shot by a gun again.

His legs moved on their own while his eyes still stuck to the Bourgeois and his Dogs. They would be all retard if they couldn’t tell Jason didn’t give them a knuckle of his trust right now.

“Much better.” That Wolf smiled, more like a devilish smirk than a cooing smile. “You’re in a shock, I can understand that.”

“Oh can you?” Jason repeated, spitting the words out.

“Well, I can’t say I don’t have experience in works like this.” That Wolf smirked again. “Although, to be honest, I haven’t tried the taste of 26Kvlt of stun gun and rubber bullets from riot firearms before.”

So it was rubber bullets, no wonder Jason was still goddamn alive. But he couldn’t tell the same with the guns currently so damn anxious to point at him at this moment. Dogs never hesitated when it came to their Master’s safety.

“It hurt the same.” Jason decided, still glancing around and at the Dogs. “The bullets, I mean.”

“Yes, we didn’t think it was necessary in the first place, but you put up quite a fight.” The Wolf smirked. “You are, by all mean, beyond my expectation.”

What expectation? Jason felt like he needed to puke, like something was itching to breakout underneath his skin. Every single sentence slipped out of the Bourgeois’ mouth, a third of the meaning shuttered and rolled off somewhere before it reached Jason’s hearing. He felt lost, completely lost like he was about to invade a world he knew nothing about.

The Bourgeois looked at him like he could read his mind, eyes sharp like those blade on the rock cutter he worked on all the time, ready to piece Jason apart for some discovery.

“You have questions.” He said, not smirking anymore. Jason still hadn’t decided whether he enjoyed the fucker’s poker like this, or when he smirked more. “I’m open for some.”

“Some?” Jason asked.

“Yes, I’ll have to decide whether the content deserves an answer or not.” He shifted his leg and crossed his arms. In some way he made Jason understand this was a change in attitude, and there was no more argument of how much Jason was allowed to know, or how much he wasn’t allowed to know.

“Where am I?” Jason already knew where he was, but he had to make sure.

“Still in Underworld, in case you’re worried. We’re in the reanimation room of the Commander chamber, one of the areas that you have never seen nor stepped a foot in before.”

Commander chamber? Fuck him, so Jason was in somewhere behind that glass room up above the Balloon. No wonder the air was a lot easier to breathe in, the Dogs got all these types of weird pipes pumping fresh oxygen into their restricted areas.

“Where is Dax?”

“Slave W1298X was returned to his bunk right after we successfully captured you, unharmed… well, no worse than what he had already got.”

“You fucker…” Jason breathed, tried his best to hold back while glancing at the silently straining guns behind that Blonde Wolf. “Dax is just a kid, quite a retard one, but still, if you did anything to him−”

“I told you, he was just a part of our plan, but never our target.”

“Plan?” Jason felt something in him tense up then snap, like a loose rubber band between fingers. Memories of taking electric shocks on his raw skin, of feeling battons raining on his back, of Dax looking half-dead lying on the ground while watching him fighting for both of them came back, rushing like mud river after the machines made the dumping.“You’re telling me beating the shit out of me and that kid is a part of a fucking plan?!”

The Bourgeois didn’t give him an answer, as if the silence and empty stare were enough of an answer, as if he expected Jason to read the sign and just take what he could get already.

This time Jason didn’t hesitate and jumped toward the Bourgeois. The Dogs got him right away, of course, Jason couldn’t say he was the best judge of actions he might take while anger hugged him. But hell, the urge to smash those shiny glasses and make a hole in the middle of that pretty face of the Blonde Wolf took the best of Jason, and before he even made it more than two steps toward the Bourgeois, the Dogs marched over, holding him and kicking his knees until they hit the hard cold floor.

Jason growled when he felt cold guns pressing against the back of his neck, wrestled in arm grips and snarled out loud when a Dog pulled his hair and tore his head up to face the gaze of the Blonde Wolf.

“Fuck you!” Jason spat. “Fuck you all, you piece of shit!”

His spit spilled out and landed somewhere on the tiles near the Bourgeois’ shoe. Jason watched the gap between those pale eyebrows on that pretty face refold and tighten.

“How unsightly.”

Jason felt like sucker-punching the fucker. The Dogs on his shoulder pushed him down further, making his knees waver for the adding weight. He suddenly remembered about Kyle, about how he hadn’t been able to do this, fighting back and pushing back like he should have been able to so easily, like he could have all the time. When whips rained down and shouts spilled out all he did was just laid there, already too near to the other side the moment he hit the ground. He had died just like that, with Dog looming over his lifeless body, barking and spitting and slapping him with the end of his whips. Kyle had died like that, and Jason was not Kyle.

He refused to be Kyle, refused to die under those oppressive eyes, to fall down on his knees under the noses of those machine guns, under the Dogs’ hands and commands. 

He heard them yelled above his head and then into his ears, ordering him to stand down and probably to stop fidgeting too. The words just angered him more, burnt him harder than any furnace he had worked with before.

“Stand down please, Mr. Todd. I thought we have worked through this already?”

“Fuck you! You ready to kill a fucking kid to get to me? You ready to kill a fucking kid?”

Blonde Wolf looked the furthest from happiness and satisfaction.

“Killing is not my intention.”

“Shove that fucking intention back into your ass. What do you want?” Jason didn’t know what part of the sentence that amused the Bourgeois, but the wolf smirked like he had caught Jason’ throat between his jaw.

“The question is not about what I want, but why you are wanted.” He answered. “You’re wondering why we picked you out in millions of others living here.”

“No shit I am.” Jason spat.

There was more than that that he wanted to know, but somehow he couldn’t form they all together in shape and size to be voiced out.

“Your strength, your skills, what you have performed so far, they are considered valuable.”

“Of fucking course they are. I live by them.”

“We’re talking about something far more precious than your slave role here.”

Suddenly Jason didn’t want to listen anymore. It was strange, how just minutes ago he was too damn anxious for the answers of everything, now a chill crept down his spine when the room felt into silence, only empty masks and cocky eyes staring at him, waiting, calculating, expecting his next move or expression like an entertaining game of leisure for them.

Jason took a deep breath and looked back at the Bourgeois, feeling the fire in him waver just a little when the smirk facing him back didn’t even move an inch.

“What do you suggest?”

The damn Wolf grinned. “A new job.”

The words seemed to reach Jason’s brain slower than they had to his ears, because Jason just stood there, dumbfounded like a powerless machine.

“What?” He managed.

“Why do you think I picked the kid as the subject in this testament?” The Bourgeois stood up, and walked around the armchair he had sat on, eyes not once left Jason’s kneeling figure, looking down as if he owned the whole world Jason was living in, and probably his life too, and all of that was painfully true too. “I’ve been watching you, for long enough to know what stirs that fire inside you. You remind me of the Dogo breed, so harsh and cold, but you actually care a lot, don’t you?!”

“What are you−”

“You don’t actually think that suddenly there were Diamond workers making all the way to your area to cause such a fuss, do you? If that was true, do you think they would actually take that much of an effort to catch that little kid? Diamond workers are preciously trained to handle all the special access in their area, you was one of them too for quite some time, Mr. Todd. You, out of everyone, should be able to understand how your… Daxton, is that his name? would have never been able to get away that far if his chasers were actually trying.”

No, this was fucked up. It was fucked up because most of the fucked up part was that Blonde Wolf was actually making some senses. Diamond district was regularly heavily guarded, the Dogs grouped there three times more usual and two times the number, compare to other areas, for a cat and mouse chase like Dax had managed to get in to happen, it was obviously permitted.

Jason hated it when he was forced to believe this fucker was right.

The Bourgeois seemed to see Jason’s silence treatment as a victory move. “Tell me, why did you save him?”

Jason swallowed, didn’t even notice the force on his back had been gone for quite a while. “He’s just a kid.”

To be truth, Jason didn’t even actually know why he had decided to jump in and save Dax’s ass. It was more or less instinctive, purely brainless thought because wise men in Under would spend a good portion of their lives staying away from fights, much to say fights that didn’t occur them.

“I don’t know morals still exist down here.” The Bourgeois huffed.

Jason couldn’t help but snarl. “They still do, enough to keep us human.”

“Maybe,” He smirked again. “Or maybe it’s you.”

He walked closer to Jason, looking down on his nose with stone cold eyes through shiny glasses. Jason felt cold guns pressing hard into his neck, beckoning his unavoidable painful death if even the slightest stupid thought crossed his mind.

A classic picture of the society they were painting now, Jason, the Slave, on his knees; the Bourgeois, two sizes smaller, but a dozen times more powerful. 

“You’re quite a strange one, aren’t you?” He spoke, eyes still pining on Jason. “An orphan like that, with nothing to give nor to lose, no one cares about him, no one remembers him. Yet, you’re ready to throw your life away for him, even with an offered second chance.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Diamond workers, they asked for the kid, not you, still you interfered.” He walked closer. “The Soldiers, they asked for the kid, not you, still you interfered.” He looked down on Jason, eyes full of plots. “8 well-trained slaves, 13 finely armed Soldiers. You were ready to take down the world to protect one useless slave just because the kid knows you.”

Well, if putting it together like that, sure thing Jason hadn’t done well in the thinking department before he decided to jump in and pull Dax out of his own mess.

“We can use that kind of raw loyalty up there.”

That did something to Jason, sort of like plugging the all the wrong and the right wires out, and making the whole system blacked out.

“Up… up there?” Jason’s tongue tripped on its own.

“Yes.” The Bourgeois smirked.

He walked away, pressing some buttons on the wall that Jason hadn’t noticed they were there, making some weird device flip and present a fold of white and grey looking cloth, the colors Unders never used nor permitted, the color only unchained men used. He picked it up and threw it down to Jason’s knees. Immediately, the soldiers darted out, guns still on him. The dead-like force on his back and shoulders suddenly disappeared, space was allowed. Jason suddenly felt unrestricted.

“You are going up.” He said, hands in the pockets of his pants. His eyes, his eyes scared Jason, they held no uncertainty, no hesitation nor witticism. The lively proves that his words, his orders, were Jason’s actions.

“Get changed. We’re leaving in 30 minutes.”

 

* * *

 

 

The clothes felt strange. They felt loose, thin, and kind of saggy compared to his normal working clothes. No lace, no belt, no more than two pockets on two sides of the hips. The fabric was way lighter than the materials he usually use, drafting over him like a coat of weightless air, made the constant feeling of exposure clung onto Jason like a haunted dream. The milky white hurt his eyes, he was too used of using dirt brown, dark grey, and pure black, watching such bright color like this hugging all over his body, made Jason’s skin felt abnormally itchy. Maybe it wasn’t even the clothes at all. The shower was terrible, the soldiers dumped him into a white stall, with white tiles and infinity-like walls, there was a shower head, and the water coming out of there seemed unlimited. The temperature was way hotter than even the water he kept in the gallons at the peak of summer, reddening his skin and making it tingle after the shower. For what felt like forever, Jason just stood there, letting the water wastefully pouring down on him, hundreds tiny drops at once like massaging, washing away all the dirt, blood and sweat on him. Jason walked out like a completely new person, cleaner, cleaner than he had ever been, and redder too. The soldiers gave him towels, soft towels like the cotton they sold once in a while at the black market, and velvety like a clean animal’s fur.

There wasn’t much space Jason was allowed to wander, even when the area he was in stretched beyond his eyesight. The soldiers led him to a room, one with a big grey couch centering in the middle of the plain whiteness. Like a lost puppy, Jason just stood there, watching at the clear glass that showed the wall of dirt far away, the only proof he could find that he was still in Under.

There was a clock on the right side, hanging lonely on the blank white wall. 2:30, it showed. Jason didn’t know whether it was at noon, or midnight. To be honest, none of Unders actually knew what time of the day it was. They lived, ate, and worked on shifts, to Unders, the day started at the longest shift, then ended when the longest break came.

The Bourgeois walked in minutes later, he dressed differently this time, if possible he looked even more luxurious than before, with long dark coat, neat suit, silver buttons, and little gold chains drafting on the sides of his shoulders. The end of his cape hovered above the floor, dragging Jason’s curious eyes down the bright grey boots, with braided lace and elaborated details. Everything on him seemed… too much for Jason’s eyes. He looked like a Prince in one of the comics they sold at the black market, the comics that the ones got to go up to do cleaning on Gorundland had brought down. Most of them were thrown away, shits that no one needed up there, but down here, people could make a fortune with all of that shits.

“You people always stare.” The Bourgeois spoke, the corner of his lips lifted up. He looked like a cat with that smirk kept dangling on the edge of his pretty mouth, so arrogant, yet, with reasons to be.

Exposed and embarrassed, Jason looked down his naked feet standing on the cool floor. It felt difficult to focus on anything else when everything was just a pure whiteness. He couldn’t even see the gapes of tiles, like this whole room was one neat molded cube.

 “You do this often?” Jason asked, finally gathered enough breath and brain to make up a sentence. It was fancy on talking about anything right now, but the silence haunted this place so bad, it was bordering on unbearable.

The Bourgeois huffed. “Not as often as you think.”

Jason tried not to look at him, he feared he wouldn’t be able to take his eyes away once he did.

“Alright, it’s time.” He suddenly announced, a voice rose up, jointing Jason a bit. “Put this on.” He handed out a bracelet… no, Jason not quite sure what it was. It looked like a bracelet, but with no designed detail or anything at all, just like a piece of round plastic in pure black.

Jason accepted it hesitantly. He put the bracelet on his wrist, and analyzed it for a moment, realizing it was too big. It looked plain, too normal and non-flashy in comparison with any that was above-related. He was still examining it when suddenly the damn thing tightened and squeezed his wrist in a grip so strong Jason cried out in pain. A part of his brain jointed when something stung like and broke through his skin under the cover of the bracelet. It hurt like a bitch, like taking a needle all the way through the bone. His whole right arm limped down like it was electric shocked, shaking like madness.

“What did you do to me?” Jason grunted, clutching on his arm and looking at the bracelet that just minutes ago dangling on his wrist and daring to fall off, now hugging tight to every inch of his skin. The thing lighted up, and then there was numbers and letters dancing on the plain black surface of it. “What the hell?”

“That’s your tracking device. The sting that you felt is the chip that was planted into your body.” The Bourgeois answered casually. He took a look at the gold watch on his wrist, then turned back at Jason. “We’re running late.”

He turned to the Soldiers, who Jason had no idea had in the room since when. “Get him to sleep.”

Jason was caught off guard. “Wait, what?”

Before he could struggle, the Soldiers marched out and hold him down like a pack of dogs over a meatloaf. Jason didn’t even manage to bark out anything when a sudden pain jointed at his neck and in seconds, everything turned blurry, and faded away.

 

 

Jason jerked up in sweat. One minute there was nothing, and then in the next, memory started flushing in like the dark muddy water out of the sewage at the end of the hallway of his bunk’s floor. It was too much to understand, but at the same time, to little to even make any sense.

Jason felt the weird bracelet on his wrist, touching it and feeling the cool metal there. It showed numbers, and kept counting up. It took him a moment to realize that the thing was showing time.

Time. How long had he been out? Jason looked down and realized he was on a bed, an actual bed, again. Somehow it felt harder than the previous one he was on when he first woke up after the attack on Dax. Speaking about the kid, Jason had no idea where he was.

He got up and looked around, the floor, it was dark, solid feeling. Wood, Jason hadn’t seen them for a very long time. The walls, no matter how weird the structure looked, possessed a grayish tone, like the dusty smoke Jordan’s truck usually breathed out when she cried for some healthcare. There was that haunting silence again, so empty and soundless Jason could literally hear his own heartbeats.

Jason looked aside him, and facing him was the wall of blackness, dotting by millions of tiny white points. They twinkled and flashed, sometimes, like the twitching light balls down the mine he worked at, but sure looked healthier, more lively. Jason reached over to touch the surface, and immediately realized it was glass. Glass, who would have thought. They molded tons of glasses every day in Under, but never once, he saw one this pretty before.

The whole room was dark, but the side, the glass on his side, it shone, so weakly, just enough for Jason to see himself and what was close around him, which mainly things he couldn’t identify, but it was beautiful, peaceful even. Jason felt like he had lost himself just like that, looking at the glass with a thoughtless mind. He just sat there, for what felt like forever.  

“Fascinating, isn’t it?!”

Jason jumped. The Bourgeois stood there in the middle of the room like a ghost. Jason hadn’t heard him coming.

“I appreciate the sight myself, too. All the stones can’t keep up with the light of the stars, and the sky just reminds me of how big this world is, and how easy it is to feel lonely.”

Stars. Sky. Shining dots on pitch black cover. Jason stumbled to realized, the majestic sight right next to his side wasn’t a mere decoration on the glass, but it was actually a window, connect to a whole lively, ginormous space of air. He had heard stories, of Goners and Unders that got up on the ground once in a while, about how the sky changed between day and night, how blue it could get when the sun was out, and how dark it could get, when the stars shone brightly.

Jason hadn’t expected it to be this breathtaking. 

“How do you feel?” The Bourgeois suddenly asked.

“Weird.” Jason admitted. “And lost.” He sighed. His lungs felt light, like they had never been breathing before. His head felt weird, and all the senses were working on full potential. Jason felt himself sensitive to every movement, every change. The air made him be this way, the difference in oxygen level was so obvious his whole body was taking a hard time adapting to it.

The Bourgeois huffed. He crossed his arms, crinkling the perfect fabric of his green suit. Somehow, every time this guy appeared, Jason saw him wearing a different outfit.

“I can’t blame that.” He smiled. Jason was thankful it wasn’t a damn smirk again. “How do you feel about your room?”

“My room?”

“Yes.” He chuckled like Jason had said something retard. “Yours.”

“No shit.” Jason blurted, watching the Bourgeois’s crinkle into a frown. He looked around the place, not much he could spot from the poor lighting from the window but sure he could feel a lot of space. Big, much bigger than his bunk could ever be, and so nit, even when the room looked like it packed a lot of things, things Jason didn’t know about.

“Mr. Jason,” The Bourgeois called. Jason still hadn’t even got used to hearing his name after a “Mr.” like that. “From now a lot of things will change, you’ll have to learn to adapt to it, no matter what.”

Jason sighed. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this, wasn’t sure he was even ready for anything right now. “Where am I?” That question seemed to have become a habit of Jason lately.

“District 2.”

Jason gasped, voice choking on its own. “T…two?”

He only got a smile back. Jason took time digesting the news he just got. District 2, not 4. When they said he was going up, he had thought about Groundland, maybe they needed some muscle work up there. But District 2, District motherfucking 2 was a completely different story. Jason had never been up this high, had never even thought about being up this high. And more importantly, District 4 was the Dogs’ nest.

His tongue tripped three times before it successfully made a broken sentence. “Why… why am I… District 2?” He almost barked out a distress laugh. “Why… wha… forget it. What do you guys want from me?”

Another huff, but this time, the Bourgeois walked over and sat on Jason’s bed. Something felt wrong, like Jason should be standing when he sat down like this, should keep distance, at least act like he was following the rules. But he stayed still, mostly because his body went rigid when the Bourgeois looked at him with bright grey eyes, so bright and shiny through the glasses.

“Do you know about the Hierarchy of the Society?”

Jason curtly nodded. “Slave, Grounder, Meddler, Do… I mean, Military, and Nobility.”

The Bourgeois quirked his brows. “I’m impressed. Not a lot of Unders understand how the structure works, but I’m glad you do.” He smiled. “Anyway, our habitats are built the same. Slave under the ground,” His eyes pinned on Jason’s. “Proletariat on the ground. Bourgeois above the ground. Military above us, and then on top,”

“Are the Nobilities.” Jason finished.

The Bourgeois smiled again. “Do you know why the Military is ranked higher than us Bourgeois and live closer to the Royals on top?”

“To protect the Nobles.” Jason answered, not very comfortable with his history lecture out of a sudden.

“Exactly. It is the Military sacred duty to devote their lives to follow, honor, and protect the Royals. They sacrifice leisure, bare their youth and strength to follow orders, and go through harsh training for only one goal, to serve.” He stopped, face didn’t move but somehow his expression forced Jason to look at him in the eyes. “Morality, Muscularity and Loyalty are the qualities that identify them. With proper training, you can be great, just like them.”

Jason suddenly felt breathless. “What?” He hissed drastically. “I don’t want to be a Dog!”

“Well, fascinating hearing the fancy nickname you people give to our Soldiers.” The Bourgeois grunted, not looking very pleased with the display of Jason’s language. No shit. “It’s never up to your consent anyway. You’re a property of this continent, and a property of the Wayne House. Your fate has never been yours to decide. Whatever you are or will be, is up to The Majesty.”

Ouch, that hurt.

“You’re going to serve his name.” He looked at Jason, and quirk his eyebrows again. “And you’re going to work hard to meet up his expectation.”

“Well, the Majesty must have lower his standards a lot, recruiting an Under like me.” Jason mumbled sarcastically, not feeling polite enough to keep up the eye contact anymore.

“Not the Majesty.”

“What?”

The Bourgeois grinned. “You’re not going to serve the Majesty. You’re going to serve his son, Prince Richard, the heir of the throne.”

  

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and kudos if you enjoyed it, thank you for sticking till the end.


End file.
